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T O P I C R E V I E W

Robert Pearlman

In preparation for a new guide, I am looking to confirm that the following is a complete list of all NASA Manned Flight Awareness Medallions (presented in order of release):

Apollo 8

Apollo 11

Apollo-Soyuz

Skylab

Approach & Landing Tests

STS-1

STS-3

STS-5 (NASA 25th Anniversary)

STS-71

STS-88

Apollo 30th Anniversary (Aluminum)

Apollo 30th Anniversary (Bronze)

If you know of a medallion not listed above, please post the information here or email me directly at contact@collectspace.com.

astronut

Even though it's not a "flight" medal you might want to include the 30th aniversary medal that contains metal from the 39A launch tower.

Robert Pearlman

Actually, that coin can be found on my list the last two entries...

dr_hanson

Don't know if these are what you're writing about or if they're an entirely different breed of cat:

Medals come in what coin collectors call a "flip", roughly the size of a silver dollar, reeded edge, and from the weight I'd say gold anodized aluminium.

Tiny certificate has Port Canaveral on one side and "This medallion is made of metal blended with material expended in the first launch of Space Shuttle Columbia. Her maiden voyage, April 12-14, 1981, marked the beginning of the age of space transportation.

Medal show shuttle launch on one side and "SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA MAIDEN VOYAGE April 12-14 1981" on one side and text about Canaveral Port Authority on other.

As above, certificate reads, "This medallion is made of metal blended with material expended in the first launch of Shuttle Challenger April 4-9, 1983. With this voyage the U. S. space fleet was doubled. Port Canaveral text and image of cruise ship on one side, other side has image of Shuttle in flight and, "SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER MAIDEN VOYAGE APRIL 4, 1983 STS-6"

Robert Pearlman

The medallions you describe are actually from a different set than the MFA. Issued by Port Canaveral, medallions were issued with the "expended metal" from the maiden flights of Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. There is also rumored to be a coin for the maiden flight of Spacelab, but I have yet to see an example.

Dennis Beatty

I know of at least one medallion not on your list... the 2nd Anniversary of Apollo 11. It is the same Apollo 11 medallion but it is gold plated. It comes in a plastic holder with an appropriate description.

The other medallion may not fit your strict criteria of being issued by NASA, but there is a medallion which was issued by NACA. It contains metal from an X-1 and a Curtiss Jenny (if my memory serves me).

astronut

Just FYI: There is a silver (.999) 30th Anniversary medallion. I just bought one from the daughter of high ranking X-NASA employee. She says there were only 189 of these medals made.

astronut

While not a MFA medal, I just bought & received a medal produced by Martin Marietta that says on the back:

This medallion contains material from Viking which landed on Mars July 20, 1976

The front shows an image of the Viking lander with this written:

Viking 76 landing Martin Marietta

Dennis Beatty

A medal which contains part of the Viking Lander? Ummm... how did it get back to Earth?

astronut

Didn't you hear? The Sojourner picked up a piece of the Viking and tossed it home.

Seriously though, I have no idea where Martin-Marietta got the medal. Maybe a "ceremonial" piece of one of the landers was removed, or a metal scraping was made off one of the landers before they were sent to NASA for launch.

Or maybe when sweeping the floors after they shipped it, a janitor said "What's this piece go to?!!". They then smelted the medallion to cover up their mistake.

I can send you a scan if interested.

astronut

I just found a new MFA medallion.

It's a MIR/Shuttle one like the STS-71, but it's STS-89. It's aluminum, and no I'm not confusing it with the bronze STS-88 of which I have several. It shows a Shuttle in launch phase on the front, and has the desciption, date, & mission # overlaid an image of MIR on the back.

I'm trying to buy it, I'll send scans if successful.

astronut

While not a MFA medallion, I've just acquired a medallion celebrating the 20th anniversary of ASTP with metal flown in the Atlantis space shuttle to MIR (mission unknown, though STS-71 is probable). It came encased in lucite.

Joel Katzowitz

I've got a STS-98 SFA medallion. It's bronze in color and commemorates the US Destiny laboratory. I can send a scan if you'd like.

Ken Havekotte

Missed this thread before, but there is a Spacelab-related bronze medallion that contains metal flown on Neurolab (STS-90/Columbia), the 16th pressurized module flight in the 15 year history of Spacelab human space operations. It was a joint ESA-NASA issued medallion, however, very few of them are seldom seen (I only have 2 of them myself)! There are a few others that contain various spacecraft metals, including one of my favorites from the National Space Club, but they're not official SFA productions.

Robert Pearlman

Indeed, in the time since this thread was started nine years ago, a number of other flown-melt medallions have either come to light or have been issued. To build off the original list that I posted in January 2000, the Manned Flight Awareness medals, which are those issued by NASA's Manned Flight Awareness (now Space Flight Awareness) Office include:

Apollo 8

Apollo 11 (Aluminum, Gold-Plated)

Apollo-Soyuz

Skylab

Approach & Landing Tests

STS-1

STS-3

STS-5 (NASA 25th Anniversary)

STS-71

STS-88 (Aluminum, Bronze, Silver)

Apollo 30th Anniversary (Aluminum, Bronze, Silver)

STS-98 (Aluminum, Bronze, Silver)

STS-114 (as a team award)

In addition, there are similar medals issued by other project offices, contractors and private mints which fall into the similar category of flown-metal melt medals:

Apollo 8 (Eastern Airlines)

Apollo 13 (Franklin Mint)

Apollo 14 (Franklin Mint)

Skylab (issuer unknown)

STS-41D (McDonnell Douglas)

STS-42 (World Space Congress)

STS-42/94 (Yuri's Night)

STS-89 (MSFC Space Shuttle Project Office)

STS-90 (ESA-NASA)

There are also medals without flown metal but which were still minted with parts from spacecraft or hardware related to spaceflight:

There are other medals that don't really fit into any of the above categories, such as the Apollo 11 medals that were struck using a die that flew on the mission and the Spacelab 1 coins that flew on STS-9, much like the Robbins medals but for agency presentations.

So, I'm currently in the process of building a database (pictures + information) for such medallions (all the space medals, in fact). I have quite a few items already but I'm sure those I have are not all of the medals that are there. Some of them seems to be quite rare [at least to me].

I know that Robert has his own, pretty informative gallery, but I have a feeling that it's rather outdated (sorry...).

Perhaps we could continue this ~10-year-long tradition by putting pictures of the missing medallions in this thread?

Or, I could start a new thread with the first post being the list given by Robert, people could add their own pics and info and I could keep the list updated [by editing the first post of the thread]. What do you think?

I believe it would be helpful not just for me but would be beneficial for all the other collectors.

Robert Pearlman

quote:Originally posted by teopze:I know that Robert has his own, pretty informative gallery, but I have a feeling that it's rather outdated (sorry...).

Well, the gallery is not meant to be a definitive guide but rather an inventory of my own collection. It is not outdated insomuch those are the medals I own.

That said, that gallery is current for the Manned Flight Awareness medals, less some of the base metal varieties, i.e. silver editions.

Though I included the STS-114 team award in my updated list above, I would personally not classify it as an MFA medal, at least not in the traditional sense. Though it was initially proposed as such and issued by the same office, it was not distributed in quantity.

If the intention is to illustrate other types of medals, then a new thread is probably merited.

328KF

Add the recent Apollo 7 medal from the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas.

TRS

Regarding the Port Canaveral medallions - I understand these were minted using a small amount of material form the launchpad and from the SRBs. Would the SRB content promote them into the 'flown' category?

Ken Havekotte

No, the Port medallions were made, mostly in part, from conduits of the 31-feet high tail service masts of the launch platform bases that were used for the maiden shuttle orbiter flights. There were no materials expended that were actually flown.

There is also another Port medallion, similar to the shuttle medallions mentioned above, that contained metal expended in the first commercial launch of Titan III in 1989.

As for the Apollo 30th anniversary medallions, produced by Galaxy here locally, I don't think any were official issues of SFA. I do recall one of those committee meetings in 1999 here on the Space Coast, of which I was a member and attended, regarding a 30th anniversary medallion discussion project. If I recall correctly, NASA may had requested some of the medallions for agency promotional give-a-way programs. Rather those allocations from the space agency qualify the Apollo anniversary medallions as an official SFA product, I don't believe so, and there is no mention of "SFA" anywhere on the medallions nor any supporting documentation.

In addition to the Port series and MFA/SFA medallions mentioned, there are a few other medallions that perhaps should be included here. Others were made from launch pad relics, different Skylab productions, and a few other company-issued pieces.

Robert Pearlman

quote:Originally posted by Ken Havekotte:I don't think any of the Apollo 30th anniversary medallions, produced by Galaxy here locally, were official issues of SFA.

Interesting observation, Ken. I was told that some quantity (how many I don't know) were distributed to employees at Johnson Space Center, and the same for NASA Headquarters. They were also distributed by NASA at a private breakfast for members of Congress celebrating the 30th anniversary.

That said, you're right: I have yet to see a presentation certificate or card, as usually accompanies SFA products. The STS-71, STS-88 and STS-98 medals all had SFA documents.

TRS

quote:Originally posted by Ken Havekotte:No, the Port medallions were made, mostly in part, from conduits of the 31-feet high tail service masts of the launch platform bases that were used for the maiden shuttle orbiter flights. There were no materials expended that were actually flown.

I've based my information on the card contained in the sleeve that comes with the Port Canaveral Coin, the indication is that there is component from the actual shuttle stack. I also understand there is another variant of these cards stating that is is minted using metals from the maiden flight - might it be the case that there are two issues of the Port Canaverals - one with and one without flown component? This seems to my mind to explain the different issues of the coins (e.g. Cruise Ship version, Shuttle and Anchor Version, Text version).

Ken Havekotte

Chuck Rowland, a former Port Director here at the Cape, told me in a letter dated Aug. 1983, "the aluminum, blended with the stock from which the medallions for STS-1 were stamped, was part of a conduit which contained electrical connections from the launch platform to the shuttle and which was destroyed during the launch. It did not go with Columbia into space..."

Mr. Rowland also told me personally that the Canaveral Port Authority produced a total of 10,000 medallions in two production runs and that both were identical.

Later, KSC-NASA public relations confirmed what Rowland had indicated and also informed me that it was indeed an electrical conduit from the pad's tail service masts, as it could no longer be used for another shuttle liftoff.

If there was a third production run of the medallions, I am certainly not aware of it, and after 25+ years since the maiden voyage, it would to me seem very unlikely.

TRS

That's helpful information Ken. So is there any story on why the cards were worded the way they were? It would seem to be grossly misleading at best.

Ken Havekotte

It would seem so, but let me make some phone calls, and I'll report back later.